Featured song from 2012's Nebraska Catfish LP
Into New
(Based on closing lines of Wendell Berry's "A Purification")
Like the night sky into blue
Or a single cell becoming two
Like me leaning into you
Something old is escaping into new
I used to worry my mistakes
Guilt makes the bones and the body ache
Now I am leaning into you
Something old is escaping into new
Like the past into now
A spring renewed somehow
Like the wind or the dawn—
Always returning, always gone
Ancient wisdom, come to light
A fading love that finds its fight
See how I'm leaning into you?
Something old is escaping into new.
I always wanted desperately to win
Disguising loss with a grin
But now that I am loved by you
Something old is escaping into new.
Now that I am loved by you
Something old is escaping into new.
A Purification
At start of spring I open a trench
in the ground. I put into it
the winter's accumulation of paper,
pages I do not want to read
again, useless words, fragments,
errors. And I put into it
the contents of the outhouse:
light of the sun, growth of the ground,
finished with one of their journeys.
To the sky, to the wind, then,
and to the faithful trees, I confess
my sins: that I have not been happy
enough, considering my good luck;
have listened to too much noise;
have been inattentive to wonders;
have lusted after praise.
And then upon the gathered refuse
of mind and body, I close the trench,
folding shut again the dark,
the deathless earth. Beneath that seal
the old escapes into the new.
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